Catching up

This is turning into a bit of a blogging binge  – 3 on the trot ??? Suspect it’s a not-very-subtle tactic, an avoidance strategy, much more diverting than vacuuming or floor mopping. Or going up and down stairs all the time when my left kneecap hurts – I’ve no idea why.

Trying to spring clean – in fits and starts – to make the final clean–up easier when all my stuff’s shifted. There’s also the fear that since this house is back on the letting lists, there’ll be people coming to view. Dust bunnies and cat hair and an oven in desperate need of attention are not how I want to be remembered. I’m also trying not to play with my new toy, the bits and bobs I ordered from the excellent Cotton Patch mail order shop to add needle felting to my fabric mapping. Another string to the bow. Kept seeing textile artists listing it in their methods and wondered what it was all about – with everybody doing it, surely must be useful!  Damn good excuse anyway...

Collected my mother from the care home on Tuesday. Took an hour or so longer than expected because I was trying to track down 5 pieces of missing clothing. Numerous requests to the staff over past weeks had turned up zilch. I went down to the laundry and they were really helpful. The man there took me to the lost property room (no luck) and up to my mother’s old room on first floor (no luck there either) and back to the laundry where we went through all the baskets, and eventually I left them with a description of everything missing, hoping it’ll go past their noses sometime soon.

Assumptions that people know what they're wearing, theirs or someone else's, don't work when half of them have got dementia. Proud to say my mother threw a strop one day because the staff insisted an orange blouse was hers, just cos her room number was on the label. (On every visit I kept hauling out the same six items which weren't hers, handing them over to the staff. Next visit, back they were.) 

Finally, got the car packed up and took her home. Pulling up outside I leaned over and gave her a big kiss, unable to resist shouting Hurray!! Hard to say which of us was more delighted. Think it was me. We went in and cracked open the champagne. 

Two hours later I went off to meet first carer at the station. She will be just fine. Very competent, sense of humour, good cook, business-like and easy to get on with. “You two seem to be speaking the same language,” said my mother. The pair of us went off to buy new shower curtains, some extra towels and a trolley–load of food. Came back to flat, carer sorted out fridge while I unpacked mother’s stuff, we put up the new shower curtains, made beds, cooked dinner and generally sorted ourselves out. I came home at 11 o’clock, absolutely knackered after an 8 o’clock start. 

Had a bit of a wobble two days ago when I found out just how much my mother’s live–in carer was costing – i.e. £20 per day fee to the agency on top of her wages. Wondered whether I should stay here in the country where mother could come to stay for two or three weeks at a time, to take the load off her finances. The new house isn’t so accommodating for someone confined to the ground floor.

Then the signing of the new lease was stalled, because the retiling of the bathroom and a couple of damp patches in the front bedroom were to be completed before the inventory could be signed off. (Includes a detailed report of the colour of walls, cleanliness or shabbiness of everything including skirting boards, light fixtures etc. on a graded scale of 1 to 5.) 

Then my bank made a mistake about my credit rating. That was sorted out yesterday. It involved phone calls to the accountant I had in Scotland. (It transpires that my rating is also on the low side precisely because I don’t have any credit cards or HP agreements. I have one storecard. Credit reference agencies hate this! I don’t have credit cards because when they’re in my handbag they have the knack of leaping out when I’m anywhere near a craft shop, or IKEA, or a fabric shop …..  the combination of card and shops in close proximity is much too explosive and highly dangerous so best not have them lying around at all…..)

Yesterday the bank agreed they’d made a mistake and said it would be resolved by this morning. But this morning their computers are down. (I’ve broken it. I know.) Try again later. 

So in the middle of the wobble I phoned Friend One. HELP !! Am I being stalled for some reason the universe knows about and I don’t? Is there a message in all this? Can I really stay here with the pheasants and the hens and the rabbits and the waterfall and the endless greenery outside every window ? Can I continue to stare out of said windows when I ought to be getting on with something?

She talked some sense into me. 

"Repairs to new place you knew about in advance. Saving money is still the right thing to do. Carting mother backwards and forwards is as likely to confuse her as anything." 

(She loves travelling and coming here, but takes a few nights to remember where she is on waking, Not a problem, really, I thought.)  

"Think more about taking her to nice places for the day. She’ll just be getting used to being back in her own flat."

Mother likes the first carer, who’s going to do a three week stint and hand over to someone else for a fortnight, then return after that. At least that’s the theory. So the diciest part has been OK. If she had taken agin the first carer, the whole enterprise would have foundered. 

In other words Keep Calm and Carry On.

Now stop burbling and go and do something useful.